Grok 4 - The New AI Giant Redefining Multimodal Intelligence and Advanced Reasoning

The AI landscape just witnessed a major arrival with the launch of Grok 4 from XAI, Elon Musk’s AI venture. Released early morning on July 10, 2025, this new model promises to outpace competitors such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini in reasoning, coding, and multimodal capabilities — all underpinned by an impressive technological foundation.

What is Grok 4?

Grok 4 is the newest iteration of the Grok series of large language models developed by XAI. It delivers:

• 1.7 trillion parameters, making it significantly more substantial than Grok 3 and many prior models.
• An extremely long context window of 256,000 tokens, allowing it to retain and process vast amounts of conversation or document context.
• Training on an unprecedented scale with 200,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs on the Colossus supercomputer infrastructure, reflecting an investment of 6 to 8 billion dollars just in hardware.
• Native multimodality including text and images, with video and advanced voice capabilities anticipated soon.

While GPT-4’s parameter count is slightly higher at 1.8 trillion, sheer scale isn’t the only metric — model architecture, training data, and access to real-time information also shape performance.

To access Grok 4, XAI offers two subscription tiers:

• Super Grok at $30/month includes basic Grok 4 access.
• Super Grok EV at $300/month or enterprise API licenses grant access to a more powerful EV variant.

The pricing is premium compared to some competitors but aligns with the model’s claimed capabilities.

Stellar Benchmarks and Performance

Grok 4 shines in a wide array of AI benchmarks, standing out in 98-99% of tested categories:

• Advanced Mathematics: Scoring 95% on AIM 2025, surpassing Cloud4 and OpenAI O3.
• Programming: Between 72-75% accuracy on the SWB Bench.
• Complex Reasoning: Leading tests like Humanity, Last Exam, and others.
• Inference Speed: With an average response latency of about 67 milliseconds.

Compared to rivals such as Jamie 2.5 Pro, Cloud4, and OpenAI O3, Grok 4 frequently ranks first in benchmarks evaluating reasoning, STEM performance, coding, and mathematical problem-solving.

A unique strength is its real-time access to data from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), enabling timely, live context integration — a feature lacking in many other popular LLM tools.

Limitations and Challenges

Despite its promise, Grok 4 is not without its caveats:

• Dependency on the X ecosystem for some functionalities creates a form of vendor lock-in.
• High cost, especially for the EV version and enterprise API, could deter widespread casual use.
• Content moderation issues: Grok models are designed to be less restrictive, which raises moderation and ethical concerns.
• Learning curve: Novices gaining access (minimum $30/month) might find it challenging to leverage Grok 4’s full power without knowledge in prompt engineering and technical usage.

Practical Testing and Usage Scenarios

The model’s true value reveals itself through application in STEM-oriented tasks involving reasoning, coding, research, scientific analysis, and R&D:

• Medical reasoning and diagnostics: Initial personal tests indicate Grok 4’s robust performance in medical question answering.
• Education and tutoring: Students and educators can tailor content creation and tutorial generation with impressive quality.
• Automated workflows: Integration into platforms like n8n via OpenRouter’s API enables the embedding of Grok 4’s reasoning into automated business and technical pipelines.
• Creative applications: When combined with tools like X-Field, Grok 4 can transform images into realistic animated videos, showcasing advanced multimodal potential.

Step-by-Step How to Experiment with Grok 4 via API and n8n

1. Setup OpenRouter with Grok 4
   • Sign up on OpenRouter.io and obtain API credentials.
   • Choose “Grok 4” as your model provider in your environment.
2. Create an n8n workflow node using OpenRouter
   • Use the HTTP Request or dedicated OpenRouter Chat node.
   • Configure the node to send prompts to Grok 4, setting temperature (start with 1 for balanced creativity).
3. Prepare your prompt(s)
   • Formulate prompts emphasizing chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning for complex tasks.
   • Examples:
     • Math puzzles (e.g., “A farmer has 17 sheep, all but 9 die. How many remain?”).
     • Logic mysteries (detective-style puzzles).
     • Paradoxes for deep reasoning (e.g., the liar paradox).
4. Execute and analyze responses
   • Run the prompt through n8n and inspect the detailed, stepwise reasoning Grok 4 provides.
   • Compare with outputs from other LLMs if benchmarking.
5. Monitor costs and performance
   • Track token usage and estimate costs via OpenRouter dashboard.
   • Typical costs are around a few cents for lengthy, complex outputs.
6. Iterate and refine prompts
   • Adjust system prompts for role-playing, reasoning modes (“ThinkMode”), or constraints.
   • Lower temperature to 0.3–0.7 for more deterministic, factual responses.

By following this process, users can empirically benchmark Grok 4’s abilities and tailor powerful AI responses in automated environments.

Insights from Tests

• Grok 4 impresses with long, detailed, and logically consistent answers.
• It excels at STEM tasks and logical problem-solving, often outperforming OpenAI’s O3 and Cloud4 on the same prompts.
• The model is slightly slower than some competitors but offers richer, more transparent reasoning (visible “thinking” steps).
• Its responses are more verbose and explanatory, which is valuable for education, research, or complex decision-making use cases.
• For creative writing or marketing copy, other models may still have an edge in tone and brevity.

Looking Forward: Grok 4’s Roadmap and Potential Impact

XAI’s vision includes expanding Grok 4’s multimodal reach (video, audio, real-time voice interactions) and embedding their AI deeply into Musk’s broader ecosystem like Tesla and SpaceX. The model’s live data integration provides an edge in keeping AI knowledge fresh and contextually relevant in an era of rapid information flux.

As AI regulation and enterprise adoption evolve, Grok 4 aims to become the premiere tool for advanced AI usage and innovation, serving developers, researchers, and businesses with unprecedented reasoning power.

Final Thoughts

Grok 4 marks a significant milestone in large language models, combining scale, multimodality, and live data integration to push the boundaries of what generative AI can do today. While premium pricing and technical demands remain bottlenecks, its clarity of reasoning and STEM prowess suggest serious value for professionals and innovators.

Empirical testing—especially via OpenRouter API and integration with automation platforms like n8n—is the key to unlocking its potential in practical workflows. As with all powerful AI, users should adopt a critical and balanced mindset: no single model is perfect, and real-world benchmarks matter more than theoretical claims.